Author of Seaborn (Juno Books), Saltwater Witch, Sea Throne, and Teller (Lykeion). I'm also an illustrator with art in Buzzy Mag, Shimmer and other publications.

06 May 2005

Cat. 7a

In my last reading of the Categories I came across a curious line at7a18, "Many animals, indeed, have no head." I wonder if it carries any weight as far as when Aristotle's biological interests began?

Edghill's translation (starting about 7a16) goes something like this:

A head will be more accurately defined as the correlative of that which is 'headed', than as that of an animal, for the animal does not have a head qua animal, since many animals have no head.

During that reading of the Categories I wrote in the margin, "Off the top of your head how many headless animals can you think of?--not many." Of terrestrial animals, I can think of worms, some insect larvae, but not many. The majority of headless animals probably belong to the marine invertebrates: all of the Coelenterates (corals, sea anemones), all Echinoderms (sea urchins, sea stars), some of the Mollusks (bivalves, not the cephalopods: octopus, squid, etc.)

I can imagine a marine biologist casually adding to some scientific discussion, "...of course, many animals do not have heads." But without an abiding biological interest I cannot imagine anyone making a statement like that, and especially in an off-hand manner in a non-biological treatise.

(I can picture a young Aristotle tossing that line out at a lecture and some of the stuffier members of the Academy looking at each other with questioning stares, "Did he just say, 'animals without heads?'")

The references to the location names in HA are often used to conclude that much of Aristotle's biological study began during the so-called middle period, later on in life, decades after the Categories is typically thought to have been written. I looked through the index locorum of Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology and Cat 7a wasn't listed. It's probably too small a reference to make any kind of case for Aristotle starting his biological studies much earlier than is usually presumed. Still, I think an interesting remark.

2 Comments

Dear Chris,
The remark about "that which is headed" is interesting indeed. I believe Aristotle's point is that, since we do not define an animal as "that which is headed" (but rather as that which has principle of movement intrinsic), being headed does not belong essentially to animals. Therefore, having a head is not necessary for animals but only an accident. There are animals without head and there are non living things that have a head (a written page has "heading", a road has a "head").
By the way, when we say we "go ahead" do we mean go head of the road or go towards the direction of our head?

I browsed around, and "ahead" is relatively new, 1628, according to the online etymology dictionary:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ahead

I sent the animals with heads question to Allan Gotthelf, and just as I suspected, he dismissed it as too trivial a remark to have any affect on Aristotle's biological study: "regarding headless animals in Cat. 7a...clams and oysters would be well known to the general reader/listener."

Thanks, Claudiu. This has started me thinking about re-reading some of the works in which I've crammed the margins with my questions and surfacing those somewhere. (If they're worth surfacing).